"If a prisoner can't afford the cost of incarceration, a private prison can sue the prisoner for failing to pay it," Zhuang Qiyan said.
"Wait." Song He was stunned. "Prisoners in the Lighthouse have to pay for their own incarceration? If they can't afford it, they'll be sued and sent back to prison?"
"That's right."
"Then do they have to pay the incarceration fee again when they're imprisoned a second time?"
"Of course." Zhuang Qiyan said, "Some Lighthouse people were sentenced to prison because they couldn't afford the incarceration fee. Once inside, their debts accumulated, making it even harder to pay, so they were imprisoned again and again. At most, the cycle could repeat more than ten times. They'd spend their entire lives in there."
Song He stared dumbfounded. "No, don't the Lighthouse lawmakers think there's a bug in this system?"
"The vicious cycle is the whole point. That's how private prisons keep their customer base flowing. A penniless man steals something, gets caught stealing an Apple product, and spends the rest of his life in prison." Zhuang Qiyan said.
"With the Lighthouse's security situation... wouldn't this fill the prisons to bursting?" Song He asked, stunned.
"Leng Xiangwen's Correctional Company took in 7,800 prisoners in its first year." Zhuang Qiyan said, "It's not that there weren't any more prisoners. The prison he built could only house that many for the time being. It was full less than a month after operations began. The customer base really was endless."
"As for the third source of profit, have you heard of the one-dollar firefighting fee?" Zhuang Qiyan suddenly changed the subject.
Song He shook his head blankly.
"It started with California prisons. They liked doing this kind of thing—sending prisoners to fight fires and paying them one dollar an hour."
"Many fire